


A thousand words

by Oliphaunt1089



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Michelle is artistic, Michelle trying to figure out Peter, but in an awkward and totally dorky way, drabbles?, i love these characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 14:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12234879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliphaunt1089/pseuds/Oliphaunt1089
Summary: MJ likes to draw people in crisis. Peter Parker is a walking crisis.





	A thousand words

MJ likes to draw people in crisis. Peter Parker is a walking crisis, so MJ draws Peter.

She draws Peter in detention, looking like the embodiment of misery with those huge sad eyes of his. What a nerd.

She draws Peter when he ditches decathlon (again), the guilt plain in his eyes but something urgent in the way he moves.

MJ draws Peter in chemistry, a look of intense concentration on his face, yet when the teacher calls on him he has to ask what the question was again.

She draws Peter's face when he apologises to Liz, all open honesty yet wishing he could say more. Was it her, or did that "sorry" hold more weight than a ditched dance? What was the deal between them?

She draws him at lunchtime, his head and Ned's almost touching as they whisper together, thick as thieves. She draws the startled, guilty, terrified look on Peter's face when she sneaks up on them from behind. It's not as if she heard anything, but she glances back at that drawing every once in a while and wonders.

MJ draws the bags under Peter's eyes that don't seem to go away these days. He's turning up on time for decathlon for once, but he always arrives at school in the morning at least five minutes late.

She draws the bruise that lines Peter's jaw during Physics, and is gone by Math. He has a speck of dried blood on his wrist that she doesn't think he's noticed.

She draws Ned's face when Peter doesn't turn up for school one morning. She notices how he pales when everyone is talking about the news, and how Spiderman held up a burning building but hasn't been seen since.

The next day she draws Peter in PE as he tries to hide a limp, his eyebrows creased in constant concentration and the corner of his mouth twitching every so often as if in pain. She offers him ibuprofen afterwards and he looks surprised and slightly caught-out, but accepts gratefully.

MJ draws Spiderman as he stops a speeding motorbike less than twenty paces from where she stands. There's a strange feeling as the lines come together, as if she's drawing something familiar and not a mysterious superhero. She's seen that posture before.

MJ draws Spiderman again, from a blurry photo on the internet while sitting in history class. Then she rubs out the mask and draws Peter's face there instead. It looks right. Now she sees it, she thinks she might have known for a very long time.

She rips out that sketch, screws it up and throws it at Peter. She draws his face as he unfolds it and knows she's hit the jackpot.

MJ lowers her pencil as she sits on a railing outside someone's house, Peter begging her to keep his identity a secret. It's a great drawing opportunity, but somehow she doesn't want to.

"Hey doofus, don't get your knickers in a twist. I won't tell," she promises, and sees Peter relax instantly. "Ooh look, there's a spider on your shoulder!"

She draws Peter's face as he leaps off the railing, spinning frantically in circles trying to swat the imaginary spider. He glares when he sees her in fits of laughter, and she draws that too. It's just too good.

Michelle has enough doodles of Peter to make a small shrine to him. She's considering just that (ironically, of course) when he tumbles through her window at just past midnight, barely coherent and covered in blood. She doesn't feel like drawing his face when she digs the bullet out of his leg. It's only once he's sleeping soundly against a beanbag, her duvet draped across his skinny form, that she pulls out her sketchbook. It would be creepy, except _he_ was the one in _her_ room. That's what she tells herself, at least.

The next week, he drops in at a more godly hour to say thank you. Her house is empty apart from her brother, and she's cross-legged on the floor messing around on her keyboard. It turns out Peter can play a couple of songs. It feels like they've been friends forever now. When he's gone, a short melody pops into her head which she hasn't heard before. It's not a complete song by any means, but it belongs to Peter in just the same way that her drawings do. She jots it down.

MJ finds it harder to draw Peter without him noticing. When the maths teacher tells bad jokes now, he meets her eyes as well as Ned's across the classroom in long-suffering sympathy. She can't tell if he knows she was already staring at him.

MJ draws Peter without his top on. Seriously, it's too good an opportunity. They're at Ned's house, which MJ has never visited before and honestly she's kind of honoured that she's been included in this social event which involves watching every original Star Wars movie back-to-back, when the cat manages to knock a glass of orange juice all over Peter's top. Ned goes to grab a spare t-shirt of his, while Peter stands there looking embarrassed and MJ takes in the view. There's no way she's forgetting this moment.

She draws Peter when, for the first time in weeks, he comes into school looking moderately well rested, which is weird because he was awake at 4 in the morning. She knows this because he texted her, and the different noise she's set for Peter's texts woke her up, so of course she replied and they had a half hour text conversation in the middle of the night. At some point he must have actually gotten some good sleep, though, because he's a lot less of a crisis than usual. It makes her glad. When did she become such a concerned friend?

MJ draws the look Peter gives her when he thinks she's not paying attention. It confuses her, because it makes her wonder how _she_ feels. Is this weird drawing obsession a symptom of something else?

They're sitting in the park after school, just the two of them, when Peter says, "Can I ask a strange and potentially awkward question?"

"You know I'm the queen of awkward, right?"

"Am I friendzoned?"

MJ accidentally snorts at that, but she thinks her heart might have just qualified for Olympic hurdles. "Hold on." She digs through her bag until she finds her sketchbook, then taking her life in her hands, passes it over to Peter. "See for yourself."

He flicks through the pages silently, reading the dates at the top of the pages and taking in image after image of his own face. MJ doesn't breathe. Slowly, Peter smiles. He gets to the torn-out page and pauses, reaching into his pocket. "This belongs here," he says as he spreads out the neatly folded picture of himself as Spiderman in the space. He continues to turn the pages until he reaches the end, then slowly closes the sketchbook and hands it back with reverence. "You're really good at drawing," he says earnestly.

"You're missing the point," she smirks. He looks at her, and she's moved her face inches from his.

"What point?"

"I like you, you idiot." Saying it out loud is scary, because she hasn't quite admitted it to herself. Still, Peter is even more awkward than she is sometimes. Someone had to make the leap.

She wants to save the look on his face so she can draw it later, but some other instinct takes over and she closes the distance between them. She can feel Peter's surprise, but then he relaxes into the kiss and MJ knows. Peter is a walking crisis, but now he's _her_ walking crisis. This is a million times better than any drawing, and she's not going to let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello people! That was slightly different from my previous story, but the next one will be more along the almost-kill-Peter lines and star Ned and Michelle working as a team! Hopefully I'll be able to post that by tomorrow because it's mostly written already.
> 
> I love Michelle so much because she's one of those amazing arty-sciency people while also being super independent and inspirational and I would totally watch a film just about her. The world needs more Michelle Jones.
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! :)


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